The ESAudio, YM Series experience.                                                                    

It’s really hard to get draw by the sound of audio gear when you’re walking around the noisy floor of a trade show like NAMM, a convention where there’s music and sound at every booth on every corner. Under those conditions, your exploration process is mostly influenced by what you see. With so many sound sources masking each other it is hard for a product to stand out above the noise, but ESAudio did.

I’ll never forget that day when I saw those artisan made looking little speakers. They didn’t catch my attention at all while walking by the booth. In the back of my mind, those little cute speakers weren’t for me. I’m used to mixing on large format line arrays speakers while touring. All of a sudden, after I passed the booth, music came out of them, and I immediately stoped, walked backwards, positioned myself in between the speakers and listened.

WOW……My jaw just dropped to the floor. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Without a second thought and without asking, I jumped straight inside the booth to trace cables expecting to find something hidden. I just found a phone connected to four dual six inch line array speakers in two stacks that were producing the most amazing sound I’ve ever heard in all my years visiting NAMM shows. The sweetest high frequency response with the cleanest but deep mid lows that I ever heard out of any PA speaker that I’ve used. 

I was so impressed and excited that I made anyone that I knew listen to the NJ 66. I wished there was a camera to record everybody’s reaction to the sound, including myself. But some questions still remained on my mind; Will the sweet sounding ribbon driver would last a whole show without getting fatigued and diminished? How will those small boxes behave in a long line array for large events? Can I use it in a real life Luis Fonsi show?

I started to ask questions about the system and found out that the little speaker is part of a modular system that becomes a medium to large format PA, depending on how the modules are configured. Then I got more curious. I definitely wanted to mix in it, but first I had to listen to the system in its large format configuration. Next stop, Szeged, Hungary.

A few months down the road, after mixing “Despacito” all over the world, we got a show in Hungary, the motherland of ESAudio. Yesss!!! I ended up in Szeged, a beautiful small city on the southern great plain region of Hungary, where one of the main city attractions, The Szeged Open Air (Theatre) Festival is held every summer, since 1931.

The festival, that extends for various consecutive months, is the biggest festival of its kind in Europe. At the heart of “Dóm tér”, ESAudio was born, in a quest for a speaker system that will better suit the dynamic range and nuances of a classical orchestra and opera singers, but with less reflections and sound bouncing out of the buildings that surround the Votive Church staircase and plaza located at the center of the centenary city.

There I was, ready to listen for the first time a large format of ESAudio system in surround sound. The classical music sounded absolutely stunning, an audiophile quality experience with all the details and dynamic range that classical music requires. Next, something new for ESAudio speakers, Reggaeton.

I felt like it was blasphemy to ask them to play dance music in front of the cathedral but we did it. The system sounded very pretty, actually too pretty and soft for that kind of music. It was a bitter sweet experience.It’s hard to visit someone else’s house and to criticize their children, but I did it. The system was perfect for the music that it had been created for, but not for the kind of music that I work with.

After talking about my impression and giving feedback, I invited Mr Sándor Elek, the genius master mind behind ESAudio to the latin urban music concert that I was mixing the next day. I told him “if you come to the concert you’ll understand what I need”.At the end of the concert Mr. Sándor said; “I’ll make something new, and it will have your name on it”. At that precise moment, in August 17 of 2019, the vision of the ESAudio, YM Series was conceived.

In December of that year, on the day of my birthday, I visited the ESAudio factory and received the greatest birthday surprise present that I’ve ever received in my life. I was listening to the incarnation of that vision, listening the first YM 88 prototype. Wow what an experience, what honor to have your name in a product that will be a landmark in the audio industry!

The year 2020 arrived and Covid too, but that didn’t stop the pursuing of the vision behind the YM series. Actually Covid, gave us more time, and the opportunity to take something really good, and not just make it better, make it great.

In August, at the City of Life Church, ESAudio will present the final outcome of this wonderful adventure. A line array system able to interpret the nuances and subleties of acoustic music, and perform the ruthless physical aggression of electronic music, a system that can do them both flawlessly.

If you ask me to describe the sonic experience with the ESAudio, YM series, the best I can say is that it’s an audiophile grade experience with all the physical sound that you’ll ever want. But no matter how many words I can express, nothing replaces the experience of listening it by yourself to understand it.